All's Well that Ends As You Like It
by Sally Mn
Summary: Rodney, Ancient culture, and a visiting linguist/anthropologist/archaeologist. What could possibly go wrong?
1. Chapter 1

**All's Well that Ends As You Like It**

You can't decide who of everyone involved in this whole catastrophe is maddening you most, so, being Doctor Rodney McKay, you naturally decide to be mad at everyone. Mad is good. Mad helps distract you - a little - from being terrified.

So you're good and mad, even if you can't _be_ mad at the top of your voice as you usually do. You can't even move.

You're annoyed by your two teammates' dumbfounded faces, by the look in Teyla's eyes that says she is trying hard not to laugh, and by the look in _Ronon's_ eyes that promises he and Sheppard are _never_ going to stop laughing at you about this.

You're way more than just annoyed at Sheppard, who managed to avoid your terrifying fate by hanging back to flirt with the cut-price alien Cleopatra dressed in a reptiloid-skin farthingale (and not much else), and is now stuck outside with Lorne and any of the villagers who didn't manage to squeeze into the room to marvel the performance you are unwillingly giving.

You're exasperated with the villagers who, as part of their Mystery Rites, are re-enacting what they claim to have believed for thousands of years to be a genuine Ancient spiritual drama. No, of course _you_ didn't believe it, but you played along with everyone else and _then_ found out it involves the ritual opening of a Sacred Ancient Sanctuary, or what they _say_ is a Secret Ancient Sanctuary, but _you_ think it looks disconcertingly more like a very very _very_ old and skewed-in-ways-even-your-brilliant-brain-doesn't-q uite-understand holographic... theatre. With what looked to your brilliant brain (okay, okay, and everyone else's less than brilliant ones, but that's not the point) like a storeroom, but which turns out to be some sort of alien closet.

You're fuming at (and trying to ignore) the little voice in the back of your head that sounds disagreeably like Kate Heightmeyer and is asking _why_ you thought that opening an alien closet was a good idea in the first place, even if they _had_ said that it was Ancient, and therefore you immediately decided that whatever was in it might be useful.

You're also seething _at_ Kate Heightmeyer for being so disagreeably hard to ignore even when she's just a voice in your own head.

You're furious at the visiting linguist/anthropologist/archaeologist for not stopping you from touching the closet before he could, since you're certain that there would be _something_ in his demented _curriculum vitae_ just _like_ this, so clearly he would have more experience of... whatever it is you're in danger of. Who invited him to this galaxy?

You're absolutely _livid_ at whichever Ancient built the wardrobe in the first place and stored what the visiting linguist/anthropologist/archaeologist is even now theorizing were the Ancient equivalent of amateur dramatic paraphernalia in it. Whoever heard of advanced aliens that went in for overacting, melodrama and...?

Oh. You think back over the advanced aliens you know, and scratch that thought. _All_ of them, and you're mad with them all.

And you're finally, absolutely _enraged_ at all and any of the other Ancients who appear to have invented their own version of amateur dramatics with _living costumes_... still living after 10,000 years for gods sake, and determined to make up for lost time by enacting or at least inscribing the whole Ancient amateur theatrical canon - with their tiny, pure purple energy bodies and tiny, sparkly, sharp claws - in moving, glowing and fading words and letters. Blank verse in Ancient.

On you.

The visiting linguist/anthropologist/archaeologist is of course busily, even enthusiastically, translating it for the breathlessly awestruck audience of locals, teammates and a couple of gobsmacked Marines in fake armor and tights.

The tiny part of your brain that isn't furious, terrified or completely mortified can't help being glad it's _him_ instead of Elizabeth. After all it's not even clear if, in the total thrall of transliteration, Doctor Daniel Jackson has even noticed that your horrible dirt-brown robes have been dissolved by the little letter-creatures and therefore - except for the skittering words and letters across your skin - you're totally naked. The locals may be staring at the purple light show, but certainly don't seem to notice or care that you're naked. Teyla (with some success), the Marines (with rather less) and Ronon (with none at all) are trying to pretend that they don't care and are looking somewhere else anyway.

_You_ care, but don't dare move. Those tiny, sparkly claws _hurt._

**~oOo~**

"Stay calm, Rodney." Teyla speaks up with that sweet, gentle tone of reason that she still has yet to realize _never_ works with you. Despite the total, if depressingly familiar, insanity of the situation she has remained calm and collected, and even in your current straits you can't help noticing she manages to look pretty good in cheap-looking knitted tinfoil alien armor, baggy green tights and cocked hat.

Ronon looks big and menacing and magnificently ridiculous in the same tinfoil alien armor, _way_ too small reddish tights and a fake copper crown askew on his dreadlocks. _Everyone_ had to be in costume; the locals (who all look like a cross between a fifth-rate amateur Shakespeare festival, an explosion in an alien fake-feather factory, and a whole troupe of rather querulous Klingon impersonators) insisted from the start that you were all to take part in the spiritual drama in exchange for being allowed into the Sacred Ancient Sanctuary. Even the soldiers had to dress up, and the not quite so incensed part of your brain notes that the armor and the tights look even more ridiculous with their P-90s.

(The totally incensed part, by the way, notes that Daniel got to dress as differently as you did, but his dirty-white Space Angel costume is far less ugly than yours was _and_ covers him a damn sight better than yours does now. This does not help.)


	2. Chapter 2

You have the oddest feeling that the tiny, scratchy painful energy touches on your skin have...

Stopped.

So has Daniel, his pen poised in the air.

"What is it, Doctor Jackson?" Teyla asks after a long, frozen minute.

The silence being broken, the locals all start muttering happily to each other and waving the ridiculous, feathery fake-spear-and-sword-like things they're all carrying. The Marines, who were given fake-spear-and-sword-like things to carry when they came in, glance at each other, at Teyla and at Daniel - and very very carefully _not_ at you - then, with a series of 'what the hell' shrugs you would swear they've all learned from Sheppard, start waving too.

Daniel blinks, looks at you, and blinks again. God, he's only just _noticed_, you can't _believe... _oh yes you can. If even half the stories you've heard about SG-1 are true, ending up naked on a distant planet is sort of _de rigueur_ for them - him - _all _of them, damn it!

So why _has_ he stopped writing?

He shakes his head as if to clear it and answers her, _way_ too calmly for what's left of your peace of mind. "Uhh, it's sort of what on Earth we'd call..." He shrugs again. "Interval."

_What?!_ That has to mean that this whole disaster is at the most -

"We're not through yet?" Your voice squeaks, and you don't care.

"At the most half-way through; Rodney, don't move!"

"Doctor Jackson," Teyla says, "Colonel Sheppard and Major Lorne are most unhappy about being unable to assist from outside the Sanctuary. In fact, they insist on coming -"

_"NO!" _

Oh right, that yell was _you_, and cut off abruptly when you feel the quiver against your skin that - oh no oh no oh no - had better _not_ be the letter-creatures stirring. You hold your breath - oh _please_ no - and it fades.

"No," Daniel agrees. He's now watching you _way _more closely than you're at all comfortable with; Teyla is too, and growing less amused and more worried by the look of it.

Well, good. It's about time someone besides you was worried. That doesn't mean they have to stare like that, however.

"Colonel Sheppard says -"

"I'm sure he does, but the device, what ever is it, is probably activated by the Ancient gene." Yes, that's what _you_ thought too, or would have if you could stop panicking long enough to put your mind to it and anyway? - plays and writing and things, soft science here, so it's Daniel's job to think. "I understand both Sheppard and Lorne have the gene, and I _know_ Lorne has a problem with moving things when he shouldn't." Ooooh, that was sharp; if you get out of this alive, you must find out what Lorne did to piss off Doctor Jackson back home.

"Think something like this'd happen to them?"

Damn him, Ronon is smirking, you can hear it in his voice, he likes _that_ idea!

...Well yes, you would too if it had happened to either Sheppard or Lorne and not you. That's not the point, and you're not admitting it anyway.

"Very probably."

"I will inform them," and you love Teyla at that minute, because if _she_ is smirking it doesn't show in _her_ voice, "and Ronon and I will ensure they do _not_ come in."

"Thank you." Daniel sighs, staring down at the ungodly scrawl of his notes. "The words have stopped forming, but I don't know for how long. You do need to keep _still_, Rodney. We don't know how they will react to movements outside the script."

"Script? What script? There is no script!"

Daniel blinks at you a third time. "What do you think I've been translating, Rodney?"

You actually have no idea - it sounded to you like all the worst parts of Shakespeare run through a Babelfish and back again, then mangled by the standard infinite number of monkeys - and you don't care. But your sense of self-preservation cuts in before you say that in front of all these local admirers of the Ancients and their works.

"You see," and guess what? - Daniel Jackson's tone of sweet reason is even more insufferable than Teyla's, "- as far as I can make out, this is not so much a play, as the Ancient equivalent of a set of tableaux."

Well, that makes sense. Not.

Ronon stops smirking and starts scowling at him. A small, petty part of you - all right, a _large,_ petty part of you - is happy to see that soft scientists get that scowl too, even if it has exactly the same effect on Daniel as a pissed off Go'uald. Which is to say, none at all.

"A what?" Ronon is scowling _and _growling now. Great. Maybe 'tableaux' mans something dangerous, or more likely just plain rude, on Sateda. "Is it some sort of threat to McKay?"

"Uhhh, not in itself, no. It's just... it is not a drama, it's more a recitation. And the living letters are doing the reciting. Rodney is..." Daniel pauses, but obviously in all the twenty-something languages and millions of words he knows, he can't find a tactful way to put whatever it is.

"Rodney is no more than a platform."

What? Oh god, there has to be a more tactful way than _that_.

"Or a podium, if you prefer."

You don't prefer. Words cannot _express_ how much you really really don't.

There's a scuffle behind the locals at the door; you can hear Sheppard snapping, and Teyla soothing, and Ronon heads off to block both of the officers from coming in whether they like it or not. Thank god.

Ahhh good, even more thanks are due because one of the least Klingonesque and most foil-covered of the locals is shuffling up to you, smiling and holding up what a tray of what look to you like cakes and cups of... well, as long as it's hot and vaguely like caffeine, you don't care.

"Stay _still_, I said." Daniel has no pity on a hungry man. You can see he's holding but not eating one of the cakes as he studies his notes and... you. It would humiliate you even more (if more was even _possible_, which you doubt) if you thought for one minute he cared, even _after_ noticing, that you are wearing nothing but those tiny, Ancient-letter-shaped bits of light.

And people say _you_ get obsessed.

"You aren't hungry enough to eat that, trust me," he says suddenly.

"I need food!" That, you tell yourself, was not a squeak. That was a whine. You still don't care. "Trust _me_, if I pass out -"

"Is that likely?"

"Yes!"

He frowns at you for a moment, then at the audience, the Marines, your teammates, and then the local who is still smiling and offering the tray to you. "What languages do you speak, Rodney?"

What? Well, _that_ question came straight out of left field, even for him, but -

"French?"

"Just because I'm Canadian? I haven't used it for years!" You can't believe you are having this discussion - hello, naked, energy-creature-covered and probably about to die genius here! What do Earth languages have to do with it? "If you absolutely _need_ to know, I probably know more Czech now, arguing with Zelenka all the -"

He simply spits out a stream of words in Czech that no one else will understand, about the cakes and what he _thinks_ the locals might have put in them.

Oh.

You decide that passing out sounds... okay.

In fact, passing out is sounding more and more probable as time goes on. The villagers are happily eating and drinking, waving their fake-spear-and-sword-like things, and chattering, probably about your 'performance'. The letter-creatures haven't moved again (as far as you can tell without moving yourself, because every time you twitch, he tells you _not _to) but if Daniel is right they are going to. Soon.

And you're still hungry.

And thirsty.

And your leg is cramping.

And it's cold.

And even though it's cold, you have noticed that your skin is beginning to feel hot, almost feverish in places where the energy claws seemed to scratch...


	3. Chapter 3

You're definitely feverish. Plus, it's been a hell of a long time you've been standing here... doesn't anyone think the Ancients would have thought to allow bathroom breaks for their living 'stage'?

Maybe not, because you _all_ too clearly remember the search for, and drama on finding, their equivalent facilities on Atlantis. Half the expedition would have packed up and gone home rather than _use_ them, if there'd been any way home at that point. Honestly, the wimping out from scientists and military alike (aren't Marines supposed to be tougher than geeks? Ha!) would have been positively sneer-worthy, if you hadn't been one of... yes, well, you decide to leave _that_ memory in the past where everyone agreed it belongs.

In the meantime lovely, wonderful, adorable Teyla has fished out a power bar and is feeding you by hand, which may be awkward but what the hell, you figure how much more awkward can you feel in one day? And kind, amazing, divine Teyla being who she is, it's from Sheppard's stash, rather than her unspeakably healthy ones, and it's chocolate-flavored. Now if she could just work out a way to pour coffee into you...

Ronon is _not_ lovely, wonderful or any of those other things Teyla is, and if he doesn't stop staring at you in that heavy-browed, totally embarrassing way you are going to do... well, _something_ once you get home, even if the something is simply complain at him at length and in detail till he begs for mercy. And yes, you know full well the chances of _that_ are as much as a Wraith going vegan, but the mental image, and Sheppard's chocolate bar, keep you from freaking further for ohhh, two and a half minutes.

It's some consolation - a subatomic amount really, but some - that Sheppard is freaking out even more than you are. Honestly he is, you can _hear_ him shouting orders that Ronon is completely ignoring, and questions that Teyla is trying to relay answers to via Ronon, who is ignoring _them_ as well along with the audience of totally rapt locals and the Marines who are trying to pretend this is not happening in front of them.

The small part of your brain that is not either freaking out, _or _feeling smug that you're freaking out less than Sheppard, _or_ still fuming at everyone in sight, is calculating how much trouble Daniel is going to be with the Colonel when this is all over. After all, the reason he and Lorne are still stuck outside is because Daniel told our very own Conan and Xena here to _keep_ them out, and our Conan and Xena have clearly decided he's worth listening to. And why? Because of his reputation with just about everyone in the expedition _and_ the SGC? Because he opened the Stargate and found the way to Atlantis? Because he's (as you admit, but strictly to yourself) a bona fide genius, maybe in his own way the _second_ smartest man currently working in Atlantis? Because he's damn well been Ascended and _dead_ and everything else?

No, it's because Daniel Jackson thinks _they're_ worth listening to, and who can resist that? You _knew_ Teyla's people were going to love him the minute he asked - honestly, like he meant it! - to hear all of their tribal histories and legends. _All_ of them. And you remember how he lit up like a Christmas ZedPM when Ronon agreed to tell him about Sateda.

Sad, really.

And being as you're the _smartest_ man currently in Atlantis (well, when you're not naked and feverish and on a planet full of Ancient-worshipping bad theatre enthusiasts), the calculation of how much trouble Daniel is in takes rather less time than you wanted, despite your hunch that quantum mathematics are probably needed to get the exact -

"Sheppard wants to shoot someone," Ronon says casually.

In spite of yourself, you snort. Oh, that is _so_ him. So _both _of them. "And does the Great Military Brain say exactly how he thinks shooting _anyone _will help this mess?"

"Nope."

"Does he have anyone in mind?" Daniel says distractedly.

His rather scary level of attention (so all right, you know full well you get that way too but only when you're staring at technology, not... naked men wearing Ancient literature) keeps flickering between you and the closet-thing you opened that started all of this. He's still scribbling furiously even when he's staring at you.

"Yep." From the glance Ronon gives Daniel, it's clear who Sheppard wants to shoot, and you mentally amend the answer to that calculation.

Sheppard wouldn't... would he? The SGC would probably fire him for it, and SG-1 would kill him. And then fire him _again_. Anyway, you hate to admit it to yourself but this isn't Daniel's fault and you are pretty sure you _need_ him to get to the end of it without dying first.

You remind yourself that Teyla still has several hundred tales to tell him, and Ronon still has nine hundred years of history to get through, and they won't _let_ Sheppard shoot Daniel until he's heard it all. That makes enough sense to cheer you up for a few minutes... before the hot, fevered patches on your skin make cheering up impossible.

You're beginning to feel sick, too. Maybe the chocolate power bar wasn't such a good idea.

"So is there likely to be anything in this... recitation," Teyla turns her attention back to Daniel, "that might help in our fight against the Wraith or Asurans?"

" Replicators," Ronon adds. "Or the Genii. Or planetary warlords we don't like. Or those folk over at -"

"Thank you, Ronon, yes. Doctor Jackson?"

"Uhh, not really." Daniel doesn't even look at her. "Not unless they're open to auditory attack involving really, really dire doggerel verse. It's all rather unlikely pseudohistory and myth and complaints about the decline of... well, just about everything. Almost," his lips twitch, "human. And also quite a fascinating look into the earliest period of proto-Ancient graphemes, which could help us with some of the older -"

"Doctor Jackson," Teyla gracefully interrupts, and you mentally upscale the level of her wonderfulness. The last thing you need when feeling sick is a lecture of orthography. "If it is of no use to us, Colonel Sheppard wishes to know if we could not simply intervene."

"That would simply be a bad plan," he says flatly, "unless we have to, to save Rodney."

You freeze. _Save _-?

"Save?" Ronon goes from relaxed to ferally alert.

"Save?" Teyla's gentle voice is suddenly all steel.

Daniel blinks, and opens his mouth; whatever he _was _going to say, he forgets as he stares at you again. You can feel those formless, sharp claws slowly, slowly, faster, faster and faster, move over your skin. They sting, and leave hot trails of vague pain.

The creatures are making letters again, and Daniel has to translate out loud. Even as he does, you can see behind his glasses that he's also thinking, just as fast as you can when you need to, and what he's thinking... is beginning to scare you. You don't need him, or Teyla, or Ronon, to say it, you _know_ this time you're bleeding. Just a little. For now.

Keep _still,_ Rodney. You can concentrate on staying mad if it helps, but you know you need keep still.

Interval's over.


	4. Chapter 4

"Is McKay _meant_ to be bleeding like that?"

Well, _that_ might be the stupidest question you've heard in all the time you've been in this galaxy, and given the stunning level of asininity you deal with on a daily basis, that is _saying_ something. But as you suspect even the slight movement needed to snarl at Ronon could make things worse, you just hate him a bit and wish Daniel would do it for you.

The locals, showing an even deeper level of idiocy, seem to think the blood is part of the show and you have a horrible suspicion that if you actually _bled to death_, they'd simply applaud and maybe even expect a gory encore. You hate them even more.

Daniel blinks at the question, but doesn't even pause in his translating out loud, or the scribbling. You don't much like him at the minute, either.

Okay, and maybe you _do_ wish Sheppard washere, just long enough to do the snarling that is clearly needed. Except someone would then have to snarl at Sheppard, who is just as likely to come up with stupid questions of his own, and at Daniel, who from what you hear has spent a decade perfecting the art of stupid answers.

Teyla is clearly thinking the same as Ronon, but you could really live without the look of trust and expectation-of-a-miracle she is turning on Daniel - mainly because that look is supposed to be only for _you_, when _you_ are saving the day (and someone _else_ is the one in pain and danger and all that, given a choice and yes, you know full well you're never given any such thing). Daniel, for his part, is writing furiously without even looking at _what_ he's writing (and you do wonder how he can do that and why _you_ can't) because he's still looking - really, really, _really_ looking - at you. At nude, bleeding, still-angry-here you.

The scratches are turning painful, and you'd let him know, let them _all_ know as only you can, but you can't. So you think it at the top of your mental voice, straight at Daniel Jackson. You are just a bloodstained thread of thought from panicking, and the thread is getting thinner and more bloody by the minute.

You're hurting.

There are too many of the locals, and they may be idiotically friendly, but they are not going to let you out.

There are too many of the letter-creatures, and you don't know _what_ they will do if you try to _get_ out, but you're guessing it won't be good.

You can tell from Daniel's eyes that he doesn't want you to move. All very well for him, he's spent at least six more _years_ getting in to these disasters than you have, he could and probably should write the SGC _guidebook_ on off-world insanity, and oh god oh god it's really _hurting_ now, they're cutting in more and more. You know that should be _impossible_, and when your team mates and visiting genius get you out of this, the first - or maybe the fourth - thing you want to do is find out how letters made of living energy can cut anything. The first through to third things involve getting the hell off this planet, getting back to Atlantis and Dr Beckett's voodoo care, and getting to tell everyone in earshot _all about it_...

Why the _hell_ hasn't he, or Teyla or Ronon - or even Sheppard, he should be able to think just as well out there as in here - worked out how to get you out of this?

Then Daniel suddenly stops making sense; oh, he's still speaking as fast and fluid as ever, but the words are... they're not even _Ancient,_ damn it. _Like_ Ancient, sure but - also _not_ like.

And just as suddenly the sharp little pains _dig in,_ oh god oh god oh...

He switches back just as quickly, sending you an apologetic look as he does. The locals all gape at him like the idiots you knew they were from the first, but then all smile like even bigger idiots than you thought possible. The letter creatures ease up again to being only painful rather than _really_ painful.

You just _know_ he did it as some sort of test, he was not just being stupidly reckless to see what would happen. Well, now everyone _knows_ what will happen, and that the letter creatures understand (which they can't) and react (which they shouldn't be able to). So you guess it was maybe, perhaps, sort of the right thing to do... except that it hurt _you_, damn it. And isn't being stupidly reckless the military's job around here? Just because Sheppard is outside and can't do it is no reason for the totally-non-military member of _another_ team to do it for him.

"...and in the arc of the benighted sky darest we see..." Daniel is still going on and on and _on_ and every awful word is hurting quite a lot now. "...Withall what troubled and unlovely times do we suffer _Satedan get ready_ and tell such a doleful tale as would shake worlds..." _What_ was that? Daniel doesn't pause, keeps reeling out the lines, but then it comes again, "worlds upon vile and worlds, worlds viler worlds upon vilest worlds that we have seen unworthy and _Satedan be ready_..."

Ronon cocks his head; Teyla tenses; you freeze, waiting for the letter creatures to dig in. You have no _idea_ what is going on, but neither the locals not the letter creatures seem to notice the extra words, even though anyone with half a brain cell would realize millennium-old Ancient poetry wouldn't include less-than-millennium-old interstellar geography: Sateda wasn't yet out of the Stone Age - and knowing Ronon, it was a Flintstone-style Stone Age at that - when this brain-cell-deprived alien charade was created.

But these TV-alien local Philistines in fake armor and tights don't _know_ that. You tell yourself this in a voice that sounds unpleasantly like Sheppard.

You also tell yourself, in the same annoyingly-like-Sheppard voice, to calm down, because wasn't this what you wanted, for someone to work out a plan to get you out of this?

You didn't want a _bad_ plan, though, and you know, you just _know_ that this is going to be really bad. Maybe as in bad enough to get both you and Daniel Jackson killed. And just who _did_ invite him to this galaxy anyway?

And there's nothing you can do anyway.

_There's nothing you can do._

Your team know how much you _hate_ it when there's nothing you can do to save the day (or even when there is) and you can see both Teyla and Ronon willing you not to screw things up by snapping. It's all very well for them and yes, Teyla would be fine keeping still while tiny aliens cut Ancient words in her flesh but _Ronon_ can't keep still to order any better than you, so you think he should keep the "don't fuck up now, McKay" look to himself.

You think it, which is safer in about every way imaginable than _saying_ it.

That bloodied thread of thought holding your panic back is thinning.

Without pausing in the torrent of words - and honestly, anyone who whines that _you_ talk up a storm in an Athosian teacup should listen to him for an hour or two - Daniel rips off a sliver of paper and hands it to Teyla, who stares at it blankly, as puzzled as the locals peering over her shoulder.

Daniel's eyes flick to Ronon.

Teyla hands the paper on.

Ronon reads it, and just nods. Okay, so it must have been in... Satedan? How much Satedan has Daniel actually learned already? You know he's good, but surely not enough to bode well for whatever rescue plan is being cooked up, in three or four languages _yet_ and counting.

Next time, you promise yourself, _he_ will be the one needing rescue and _you_ will do it with astrophysics and quantum mathematics. The mere thought of getting even makes you a little happier, and stops the fraying of that bloodied thread for just... one... minute.

"And so must it be uttered_... ignirus ignirisi!"_ Daniel suddenly spits out - what the hell is _that_? - and Ronon yanks up his real blaster out of its tinfoil holster and fires straight at the closet, which explodes in flames, then spins it and fires again -

Straight at - you?

_At you? _

Just before a stun blast sends your brain spinning into white, you see Daniel throw up his hands to shield against the Ancient script-things flying - yes, yes, _away_ from you! - and hear him yell the words over and over -

"Ignirus, ignirus, _igni...!" _

_That's... that's... _


	5. Chapter 5

_That's... Ancient for... what? _

That's your first thought as you swim out of unconsciousness.

"Ignirus, Doctor Jackson?" That's Teyla somewhere above you and asking pretty much the same question.

"It's the Ancient, or rather, proto-Ancient term, as near as I've been able to find, for fire." His voice is as reticent as if he hadn't just saved the day, and more importantly saved _you_. If you're actually saved, that is. You're not sure, yourself. "It was the best I could think of, the classic way to stop a show and clear a building..."

"So you had to say _that_?" Ah, Sheppard's voice. Sheppard has been let in, or you've been brought out at last. You're glad - in a sick, swimmy way - that he sounds nearly as pissed as you're sure you would be if you _weren't_ so sick instead. You're also glad for the covering of... you don't _care_ what you're covered with, even if it is painful against the three million or so wounds inflicted on you. Three million or so _tiny_ wounds but nasty, painful ones.

You're not so glad for them. Or the hands - Teyla's, you think - small and trying but totally failing to be gentle. Or the very cold, very hard whatever-it-is you're lying on, which is hurting theother million wounds on your back...

Oh. Your brain kicks into some sort of gear and you realize that it's the puddlejumper floor. You're breathing puddlejumper air, and probably being puddlejumpered back home by the Colonel. Home is good. Okay, you can be glad for pretty much everything now.

And Daniel is answering Sheppard, so you try to concentrate. Whatever he did, after all, should have been outstandingly brilliant. After all, he's supposed to be a genius too -

"I started a fire alarm in proto-Ancient, yes."

- Or outstandingly insane.

"Bit of a risk for McKay, wasn't it?" Oh yeah, definitely pissed. Sic 'im, Colonel.

"Not really, Colonel." Sadly, Daniel has survived far worse siccings (is that a word? - you think it ought to be), and doesn't even seem to notice the smackdown, which you are pretty sure will piss off Sheppard even more. "It was more like a huge risk, the odds that the letter creatures wouldn't recognize it, or worse, would try to finish the tableaux all at once and seriously hurt Rodney in the bargain was... oh, I'd say about fifty-fifty."

"What odds?!"

_What odds?! _

"Or sixty-forty," Daniel goes on, as calmly as if he was not making things worse.

"Gotta tell you, Doctor, I'm not loving those odds."

"I think Rodney will agree it was worth it, though."

No you won't. No you _fucking_ won't. Not at least when anyone can here you. You have a reputation of being the most brilliant _and _only sane man on Atlantis to maintain.

On the other hand, you're alive. You're pretty much all right, if it wasn't for the pain, and the bleeding, and the near-death-by-bad-theatre experience, and the cold floor, and the... everything, really. Should you open your eyes and let them know?

"And the natives don't have the Ancient gene, so are quite safe from the energy creatures. I thought they might resent the fact that we wrecked their Ancient spiritual drama," Daniel goes on, "but it turned out that what happened with Rodney was - well - sort of foreseen in previous years. More or less, and rather less by my interpretation, but they believe it, and they're thrilled that the honor of watching it happen came to their generation."

"And we're just thrilled _for_ them," Sheppard growls. "Tell me you didn't promise a return visit."

"They have offered us a year's supply of that cake and non-coffee," Teyla says pacifically. Daniel is suspiciously silent but then he_ will_ be safely back on earth when that comes through. You wonder if you should say anything about what he said the cake was, but then decide discretion right now will be the better part of future paybacks on anyone who annoys you and has been dimwitted enough to eat them.

"So where are those things now?" Ronon growls. "The bits of light. Where'd they go after they hit you?"

Oh. They hit Daniel? That's... not good.

"The creatures went after the Colonel and the Major, of course." That's Teyla, sounding mildly concerned for them. "Because of the gene. It is fortunate the puddlejumper was close enough to rescue them before they were caught."

"You should monitor the planet for a while, Colonel Sheppard, but my guess is they will simply adapt to life outside the storage closet. Or head back into it."

"Are you certain," and that's Teyla again, sounding rather more concerned, "that _you_ are all right, Doctor Jackson?"

"Hey!" And _that's_ Sheppard, sounding even more pissed at her priorities. "What about your team leader?"

"But John, we can _see_ that you are fine."

"I'm fine too," Daniel says absently. "Only a couple of words on my face."

Words on his... at _that,_ you force your eyes open. Not that you'd worry so much about _him_ - not a proper scientist, after all - and hey, even if he was hurt saving you, you're way too important for anyone to fire or SG-1 to kill (you hope) but you are worried. A little.

He did get you out of it.

Everything is blurry for a minute, then they come into focus above you: Teyla, looking _properly_ concerned about you (you assume), Ronon, crooked copper crown and all, and Daniel looking distractedly at...

Oh for God's sake, he's studying your neck, isn't he? Or rather whatever proto-Ancient doggerel those damned letter-creatures left on your neck.

"I'll need to transcribe the rest of Rodney before the doctor gets to work on him, Colonel," he says blithely over his shoulder - oh yes, Sheppard would be in the pilot's seat, " and my face of course, and add it all to my notes. You can deliver a copy to the locals, they'll probably want to run the Mystery Rites again in their next version of solstice, I'm sure they'll invite your people, and I should be able to come back for it."

The man is incorrigible: here it is, you nearly got bad-versed to death, _he_ got written on, Sheppard is never going to forgive either of you, SG-1 are going to be pissed if we broke their linguist/anthropologist/archaeologist, you have to explain the loss of your clothes yet _again_ to the supply department - you really don't want to think about how you are going to word _this_ one, maybe Daniel has some tips from his own requisition reports? - and you know all too well that you are never _ever_ going to live this down...

All that, and Doctor Languages-Are-My-Life-Even-If-They-Kill-Me-Yet-Aga in Jackson is _still_ absolutely, happily captivated by it all.

His fingers hover just above a particularly sore spot the size of a soliloquy on your throat and you can't help it, you yelp. Sheppard snaps something at him, but the fingers don't actually touch.

You can see the cuts on Daniel's face, gashes made when he yelled the equivalent of "Fire!" and the letter-creatures shot away from you and some of them hit him. The cuts look disconcertingly like Ancient script scrawled by a drunken xenospider dipped in blood instead of ink, and somehow you just _know_ he found them fascinating and has already used a mirror to start deciphering them. And the little voice in your head pointing out that you would too if it was good science and not bad prose doesn't help one little bit.

"It'll be quite safe." Somehow you know this is in response to the look on Sheppard's face, which you can't see but _have_ seen all too often. Aimed at you. Which is so unfair, by the way. "Quite safe, and totally fascinating."

And again, just _who_ invited him to this galaxy?

Oh that's right. You did.

Time to get good and mad with everyone again, you think...

**- the end -**


End file.
